Electronic sounds triggered by tilt sensors.

The circuitboard of a child’s electronic piano is equipped with tilt sensors so that the various sounds and tunes from the instrument are triggered by the dancers’ movements.

In the year 2000 while shopping in a local department store I discovered a small child’s electronic keyboard manufactured by the Yamaha company. Even with my own rudimentory electronic skills I was able to take it apart and discovered that the keyboard, once disencumbered of its plastic shell and keyboard, was a goldmine of electronic sounds, melodies, and rhythms that could be triggered by other ways than simply pressing the keys of a keyboard. For example by equipping the dancers with mercury tilt switches they could switch a sound on or off simply by moving their hands (or any other part of their bodies). From the spectators’ street-level point of view (remember- the Ballerinas with their wearable technology are always close to their public) it seems like it is the dancer’s body that is generating the sound: a group of dancers simultaneously moving their bodies have the effect of an “orchestrated movement” — in effect it’s choreographed sounds that are occurring all around them. During the Kulturbro festival (Ystad, 2000) I had the group first try out with these movement triggers in their hands, over the course of the years the YAMAHA choreography has developed into one of the central elements of the AUDIO BALLETS.

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